Breathing and stress: Inhale the calm, exhale the anxiety  

Nasal breathing can help in many ways, from easing anxiety to restoring sleep patterns

Pic: iStock

As newborns, our first act is to inhale. When we leave this world, our last act is to exhale. Breathing is central to life itself, but does how we breathe impact our health and wellbeing?

In his book Breath – the New Science of a Lost Art, science journalist James Nestor described how an introductory breathing class fixed his sleep and allowed him to become calm after years of recurrent chest infections and pneumonia.